Liberty Property Trust and Comcast Corp. will construct a
new $1.2 billion skyscraper on a surface parking lot at 18th and Arch streets
in Center City amid the cable giant’s plans to add 1,500 new jobs.
The structure, as with Comcast Center, will redefine the skyline,
and, with Comcast’s commitment, position Philadelphia as a world-class center
of media production and innovation.
The new tower will have 59 stories and stand 1,121 feet,
which will make it the tallest building in the United States outside of New York
City and Chicago. It will have a 125-foot blade at the top that will jut out
into the sky. By comparison, Comcast Center stands 58 stories and a total of
975 feet.
The building — to be called the Comcast Innovation &
Technology Center — will have a total of 1.5 million square feet of space of
which 1.284 million square feet will be dedicated to office. Of that amount,
Comcast has committed to lease 957,000 square feet, which is 75 percent of the
office space.
The cable company will have until September 2015 to decide
if it needs to lease the entire building or have the remainder of the space
leased out to other tenants. The studios of NBC-10, which currently reside on
City Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, will eventually relocate to the building.
The office portion of the building will occupy the lower 45
floors. The upper stories will house a 220-room Four Seasons Hotel. The current
Four Seasons is expected to take on a new flag.
The site of the new building is a block from Comcast’s
current headquarters and is where a developer had once proposed a grand
building called the American Commerce Center. Liberty (NYSE: LRY) bought the
1.5-acre parcel in August 2011 for $40 million.
The tower was designed by visionary architect Norman Foster
of Foster + Partners. Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Liberty invited last year
five architectural firms to participate in what was an international
competition for the building. Foster, a world-renowned architect, was selected.
The building will not be a run-of-the mill office structure.
“It is a departure from a traditional highrise and even the
first Comcast building,” said John Gattuso, senior vice president and regional
director for Liberty Property. “It is much in the spirit of a loft building and
a much more robust structure.”
Where office towers are typically designed with the elevator
bank in the center of the building this structure will have its elevator core
pushed to its west. This will allow the building to have larger floorplates
between 27,000 and 32,000 square feet that will be conducive to an open,
collaborative work environment. The exterior will be glass and stainless steel.
The building will compliment the first Comcast tower but
will not be a mirror image, Gattuso said.
“We wanted to have a building that was not a carbon copy but
one that will add to the texture of the skyline and a sense of place in
Philadelphia,” he said.
Its design caters to the type of work that will be going on
inside of it. Rather than a sterile corporate environment, the space will seek
to foster innovation, research, technology and discovery.
“You would typically find this type of building in Silicon
Valley,” Gattuso said.
In a way, it will hark back to a time in Philadelphia when
“things were made in buildings” when the city was a manufacturing center.
“They will be creating and producing products,” he said.
Liberty, which constructed Comcast’s headquarters, controls
20 percent of this project with the cable company controlling the remainder. The
development will receive $30 million in public funds from the state and $10
million from the city. The remainder of the financing will come from Liberty
and Comcast.
Liberty, a real estate investment trust based in Malvern,
Pa., anticipates breaking ground early this summer with a target completion by
the end of 2017.
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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